Interest Over Intent: The Next B2B GTM Evolution

We recently chatted with Jon Miller founder of Marketo and Engagio, where he made his predictions for what will come in the B2B marketing space in 2024. He agreed that the ABM playbook of recent years is dead and no longer effective. Now that we know this the first question always asked is what’s next.

The Shift from Intent to Interest

Traditionally, B2B marketing strategies heavily relied on identifying intent signals, which suggest when a potential customer is ready to make a purchase. However, this approach often overlooks a significant portion of the audience that isn’t immediately ready to buy but could still be valuable in the long term. Focusing solely on intent means potentially missing out on engaging with 95% of your market who are not in the purchasing phase but might still have a future interest in your offerings.

Why Interest Matters

Interest-based marketing is about understanding and engaging with the broader concerns, needs, and educational desires of your target audience. It’s not just about who is ready to buy now but about creating a relationship with potential customers based on shared interests and providing value, regardless of their current position in the buyer journey.

Interest-driven strategies help companies to:

• Build brand awareness and affinity by consistently engaging with a wider audience.
• Educate potential customers about industry issues, solutions, and insights, which positions the company as a thought leader.
• Nurture long-term relationships that could lead to sales when the customer is ready.

Implementing an Interest-First Approach

To effectively implement an interest-first strategy, companies need to focus on several key areas:

1. Content Creation: Develop content that resonates with the wider challenges and interests of the industry—not just content that pushes products. This could include thought leadership articles, industry trend analysis, and educational resources.
2. Engagement Tracking: Monitor how your audience interacts with the content. Which topics generate the most interest? What content leads to deeper engagement? This data is crucial for refining your content strategy and understanding your audience better.
3. Community Building: Foster a community around shared interests related to your industry. This could be through forums, webinars, or social media groups where ongoing discussions help maintain engagement and keep your brand top of mind.
4. Personalization and Contextualization: Use data insights to personalize the content and interactions. Showing that you understand a potential customer’s specific needs or interests can significantly boost engagement.
5. Integration of Interest and Intent Data: While the focus is on interest, integrating these insights with intent data can help tailor the timing and type of engagement, aligning marketing efforts more closely with potential sales opportunities.

Stay tuned for our next blog post where we cover the ways in which we measure intent at Trendmeon.

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